Cameron County Commissioners table vote on abandoning land near SpaceX Boca Chica site

Will roads owned by Cameron County around the SpaceX Boca Chica launch site be abandoned?

Cameron County Commissioners Court this past week was expected to address this issue during a commissioners court meeting but tabled it instead.

After going into executive session for about two hours, commissioners court tabled four items pertaining to the Boca Chica site that include consideration and adoption of an order to abandon a portion of Remedios Avenue, Joanna Street, Annette Street and Lucero Court, all located near the SpaceX Boca Chica site.

In addition, the court tabled consideration and possible action to adopt a resolution regarding SpaceX Super Heavy Project at Boca Chica Beach.

The county will address this again at a later date. “We do plan on bringing this back,” Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. said Wednesday, but did not know when it would be placed back on the agenda.

Trevino Jr. said he could not disclose why the items were tabled since it was addressed in executive session but said, “We want to make sure everything that needs to be done has been done and address any questions or concerns that may have been raised.”

Several members of the public addressed the issue during public comment of Tuesday’s meeting with many requesting the county not abandon the roads and further discussions with the public.

Alex Dominguez, a state representative and former Cameron County commissioner, who owns lands on Remedios Avenue, said he was at Boca Chica Beach about two weeks ago and when he was driving by Remedios he noticed trash on his property and that SpaceX had already taken over a part of the road.

“If the county decides to abandon this road, that is what I expect to happen to the rest of the property there, in fact I think that would be the type of taking and I think that this frustrates landowners who still own land there and perhaps want to develop land,” Dominguez said.

He said if the county plans to abandon the land it would be up to the property owners to not only maintain it but to provide access to the road as well.

Dominguez said when he served on the commissioners’ court and the county planned to abandon land, they would provide notice to not only the public but the property owners as well.

“To date I have yet to receive any notice. The only reason I found out this item was on the agenda was a friend happened to be on a blog who saw this on there,” he said.

Trevino Jr. said he could not discuss whether the county planned to send out letters to the public or property owners in the designated areas but did say, “We are making sure that whatever needs to be done has been done. Hopefully whatever concerns he (Dominguez) or anybody else has will or will be addressed as we go through this process.”

Dominguez added that landowners out there who pay property taxes should have been notified of what was happening. He said SpaceX approached him about nine months ago asking him if he would join them, but he declined.

“I disagree with them philosophically, this land belongs to the public, the public should have access to it,” Dominguez said.

Anthony Gomez, who owns land near SpaceX, said he supports what SpaceX and the county are doing but would like to be provided with more information on how SpaceX plans to mitigate continued public access to the “rocket garden” located at the production site at the end of Remedios, “which continues to be an inspiration to not only people of Cameron County but all over the world.”

He said landowners also what to know if there is some mitigation with regards to launches and evacuations. “We support this. Go SpaceX.”

The Federal Aviation Administration last week released the results of its Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) of SpaceX’s orbital launch plans for the company’s Boca Chica site.

The agency issued a mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), which puts SpaceX a step closer to conducting the first orbital launch of a Starship-Super Heavy prototype at Boca Chica, though it does not automatically grant SpaceX a launch license, which is a separate process with a decision still pending, according to the FAA.

The orbital launch would be many times more powerful than the non-orbital Starship test flights that have taken place so far at Boca Chica. Those launches involved prototypes fitted with only three engines, while the Super Heavy booster would be fitted with 33 Raptor V2 engines, each capable of producing 500,000 pounds of thrust at sea level.

The FAA said that it will require SpaceX to take more than 75 actions to mitigate environmental impacts from the proposed orbital launches.